My attitude of gratitude…

With the holiday season coming up, I thought I’d take a few moments to post what I’m grateful for. I mean, everybody is posting daily gratitude posts on Facebook, so I might as well take a few moments and jot down what I’ve been fortunate enough to be blessed with. And anybody that knows me knows that I don’t do something simply because it is en vogue.

I move to the rhythm of my own soundtrack.

Of course, I’m so thankful for my family, my home and job, to be living in the GREATEST country in the world (even though she has her faults), and the freedom to act as silly as the woman above.

God bless her.

The other thing I’m especially grateful for is the freedom to follow my dreams. I wasn’t pigeonholed into a technical path while in high school. I probably should have been. Even though I think I’m relatively smart (I graduated number 23 out of 385 in my class), there were and are others much smarter than I. I could have easily been directed to take classes that led to a vocation instead of college. I probably wouldn’t have lost my innate creativity, but I don’t think I would have chosen to write books if it hadn’t been for my love for reading, my pursuit of an English degree, and my career as a high school English teacher.

The kids I teach give me so much fodder for my books, and the stories we read as a class continue to inspire my desire to build worlds for future readers to get lost in. Though I struggle between the need for a paycheck and the longing for an uninterrupted day of writing, I’m grateful that I have the opportunity to pursue both. Capitalism is an awesome ideology!

And with that, I simply share with you my stories. They are all discounted this weekend, the most holy weekend of a capitalist society: Black Friday-Cyber Monday weekend. Small Business Saturday falls in there, too. Check out my sales as well as those of my friends, find a new favorite book, and be grateful that you’re allowed to read what you choose.